Former Actress Becomes a Key Link
For Wall Street and the Reservation

By

Ianthe Jeanne Dugan Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Sept. 6, 2001 12:01 a.m. ET

LOWER BRULE SIOUX INDIAN RESERVATION, S.D. -- Valerie Red-Horse stacked up four encyclopedias to show this tribe's leaders how a piece of paper representing a small investment might have grown during the bull market. Then she flung a few sheets of paper into the air to demonstrate how $40 million in tribe money had reaped ephemeral gains in U.S. government care.

"This is what the government gave you," Ms. Red-Horse told tribal leaders sitting around a dais in a blur of cigarette smoke and cowboy hats. "I...